1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to automated calling systems used by sales personnel and other telephone operators to place a series of telephone calls to existing or potential customers.
2. Background of the Related Art
Various computer based automated calling systems have been created to partially automate the process of calling a plurality of customers. Typically, multiple operators will be connected to a central switching device. The central switching device will automatically place telephone calls to individual customers. If a customer, rather than an answering machine/service, actually answers a telephone call, the call is then connected with an operator's telephony device so that the operator can begin a sales call. If a customer's answering machine or answering service answers the automatically placed telephone call, the automated calling system will hang up. Alternatively, if an answering machine or answering service answers one of the automatically placed telephone calls, the calling system may wait for the greeting to end, then play a pre-recorded message to the customer's answering machine.
These types of automated calling systems include computer software which is designed to discriminate between calls answered by live customers, and calls answered by a customer's answering machine/service. If the automated calling service determines that a live person has answered a call, the telephone line must be switched to a free operator who then begins the customer sales call. There is inevitably a delay period between the time that the customer answers the telephone, and the time that an operator is able to pick up the line and begin the sales call. Customers who have become familiar with these calling systems will immediately hang up their telephone if they perceive that a delay is occurring while their telephone line is switched to a sales operator. This results in missed sales opportunities.